Thermal energy method (TEM) machines use short bursts of intense heat to simultaneously deburr and deflash internal and external surfaces of a work piece without affecting or compromising adjoining component surfaces. TEM machines can be used on a wide range of work pieces that have undergone the machining process or have undergone machining and shaping. Typically TEM machines are larger in size and utilize an assembly line type of part loading system. An example of the loader for TEM machine is a rotary table having parts aligned along the circumference of the table. The table rotates the pieces into a work area where the TEM process is carried out. Such machines are used for processing a high volume of parts, are quite large and take up significant amount of facility space. In short, these larger TEM machines and their loaders are not always practical for small run applications or facilities with limited space. Thus, there is a need for reducing the overall size of the TEM machine by developing new and improved loader assemblies.
Although TEM machine technology is forty years old and is a commercially popular method of deburring and deflashing production parts, only a few basic TEM machine designs have been employed over the years. The earliest TEM machines, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 3,475,229 to Geen et al., were frameless and used self-contained pressure vessels as combustion chambers. Within a short time, however, explosion load-bearing frames were developed to help contain the vertically-directed, i.e., axially-directed with respect to the combustion chamber, forces needed to seal a bottom portion of the combustion chamber against a top portion of the combustion chamber during the TEM process.
The development of the explosion load-bearing frame permitted rapid cycling of the TEM machines as a bottom portion of the combustion chamber carrying workpieces could be quickly brought into position against a corresponding top portion and then subsequently be removed after the combustion explosion and replaced by another bottom portion in rapid succession. Nonetheless, until now, only two basic explosion load-bearing frame designs have been developed to the present inventors' knowledge.
One is the C-frame design, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 3,666,252 to Rice and U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,868 to Bozhko et al. A typical C-frame design has an upright member or members secured to a base and a top laterally projecting element or elements. The top portion of the combustion chamber depends from the laterally projecting element(s) and the bottom portion of the combustion chamber is moveably supported upon a vertical displacement means, such as a mechanical knuckle-jointed linkage jack or a hydraulic cylinder, which rests upon the frame base. During the combustion explosion, the upwardly-directed axial forces from the explosion are transferred from the combustion chamber top portion to the laterally projecting element and therefrom to the upright member(s), and the downwardly-directed axial forces are transferred from the combustion chamber bottom portion to the frame base and therefrom to the upright member(s), thus applying a tensile load to the entire length of the upright member(s) between the attachment points of the laterally projecting element(s) and the frame base.
The other basic explosion load-bearing frame design is the portal design, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 3,992,138 to Leisner and U.S. Pat. No. 4,486,173 to Hieber et al. In the portal form, a number of upright members, typically two or three, are connected together at or near their tops by one or more lateral elements, while at their bottoms, they are connected together by a base. As with the C-frame, the top portion of the combustion chamber is supported by the lateral element(s) and the bottom portion of the combustion chamber is moveably supported upon a vertical displacement means which rests upon the frame base. Also like the C-frame TEM machines, a tensile load is applied by the TEM process combustion explosion to the entire length of the upright member(s) between the attachment points of the laterally projecting element(s) and the frame base.
Person skilled in the art will recognize that some TEM machines have been developed which may appear to unskilled persons to have an explosion load-bearing frame, but which are actually frameless. Like their framed counterparts, such TEM machines typically use a vertical displacement means to bring the bottom portion of a combustion chamber into position against a suspended corresponding top portion. However, in these TEM machines, some mechanism is provided to cause the top and bottom portions of the combustion chamber to interlock together to form a self-contained pressure vessel so that the interlocking prevents the axially-directed forces resulting from the TEM process explosion from blowing the top and bottom portions apart. Examples of such frameless TEM machines are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,062 to Johnstone et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,630 to Conrad et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,917 to Cherendin et al. Among the disadvantages of the frameless TEM machines are (1) the wear caused by the interlocking on both the seals and the interlocking mechanisms and (2) the longer times cycle times resulting from the time needed for the locking and unlocking of the interlocking mechanisms to occur.